The Portuguese Journal of Cardiology, the official journal of the Portuguese Society of Cardiology, was founded in 1982 with the aim of keeping Portuguese cardiologists informed through the publication of scientific articles on areas such as arrhythmology and electrophysiology, cardiovascular surgery, intensive care, coronary artery disease, cardiovascular imaging, hypertension, heart failure and cardiovascular prevention. The Journal is a monthly publication with high standards of quality in terms of scientific content and production. Since 1999 it has been published in English as well as Portuguese, which has widened its readership abroad. It is distributed to all members of the Portuguese Societies of Cardiology, Internal Medicine, Pneumology and Cardiothoracic Surgery, as well as to leading non-Portuguese cardiologists and to virtually all cardiology societies worldwide. It has been referred in Medline since 1987.

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CiteScore 2018

0.39

SRJ is a prestige metric based on the idea that not all citations are the same. SJR uses a similar algorithm as the Google page rank; it provides a quantitative and qualitative measure of the journal's impact.

SJR

0.239

SNIP measures contextual citation impact by wighting citations based on the total number of citations in a subject field.

Pseudoaneurysm formation after aortic valve and root replacement is a postoperative complication that has traditionally been addressed by surgical means. We describe a case of a large subaortic pseudoaneurysm successfully occluded by transcatheter device closure.

A 64-year-old woman with a history of mitral valve repair and ring implantation due to severe valvular regurgitation was referred for surgical aortic valve replacement due to symptomatic severe aortic valve stenosis and dilated aorta. The postoperative period was complicated by refractory shock, and exploratory surgery revealed a cardiac rupture around the aortic valve, followed by annulus repair and implantation of a new bioprosthetic valve. Echocardiography subsequently showed a persistent cardiac communication with to-and-fro flow and a large pericardial effusion. The computed tomography angiogram (Figure 1A and B) revealed a large fluid collection compressing the pulmonary artery and left atrium. The case was discussed at a meeting of the multidisciplinary heart team, in which cardiac surgeons discouraged an additional (fourth) surgical attempt.

Cardiac pseudoaneurysms carry a 30-45% risk of rupture and death within the first year. In high-risk surgical patients transcatheter device closure is a feasible approach to such cardiac defects, and should be increasingly considered as a viable alternative to surgical repair.